Kiss (1176 words)

KissThis is a short walktrough in the KISS history.

(with credits to Alex Carranza, from whose KISS FAQ I got most of the material)
Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley met for the first time in 1970, when Gene played one show with Pauls band Uncle Joe. In 1971 Gene formed the band Rainbow along with Stephen Coronel. Paul stanley wants to join Rainbow, but is beeing turned down on the phone. This does not stop Paul from turning up at the auditions, and this time he gets hired. 1972 Rainbow develops into Wicked Lester and gets a record deal with Epic Records. They record their debut album, but Epic drops the band and the record is never released. Gene and Paul discovers Peter Criss through an ad in Rolling Stone Magazine and the band changes name to KISS. In 1973 KISS advertises in Village Voice for a guitarist, and after auditions they hire Ace Frehley. Now the band starts wearing makeup, and Ace comes up with the KISS logo.
They enter the Electric Lady Studios in June and record their first album KISS, and in August they sign a record contract with the new label Casablanca Records. The album is released in February 1974, and KISS starts of their first tour. In August they start recording their second album Hotter Than Hell at Village Recorder Studios in LA, and in October the album is released. The touring goes on until February 1975, when they start to record their third album Dressed To Kill, released in March that year. More touring was to come and the recorded live material resulted in KISS Alive!, released in September 1975 and sold gold in December.
In March 1976 Destroyer, their second goldselling album was released. The same year in May they made their first performance in Europe on the KISS Around The World tour. This year they also released a tour album to promote the summer U.S. tour, and Casablanca released the compilation The Originals, which consisted KISS first three studio albums. In November they released Rock and Roll Over, and Destroyer recived their first platinum certification.
Love Gun, released in June 1977 became their first record to ship Platinum, and later that year their second live album Alive II does just the same. The Alive II tour went on until February 1978, and in April that year the greatest hits compilation Double Platinum was released. In May and June 1978 the film KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park was filmed at Magic Mountain in Valencia. The film had premiere in October.
In September no less than four KISS albums were released, one soloalbum for each member of the band. In May 1979 Dynasty was released, and a year later in May 1980 Unmasked was released. Now Peter leaves the band, and Eric Carr replaces him as drummer. In August that year the first pictures of the band without makeup becomes official. In January 1981 Best Of Solo Albums was released all over the world with exception of North America. This year KISS recorded and released their first and only concept album The Elder.
In May 1982 the greatest hits album Killers was beeing released all around the world, once again with the exception of North America. In October that year the album Creatures Of The Night was out on the market. In November 1982 the KISS lineup changes again when Ace leaves the band, and was replaced by Vinnie Vincent. In June 25 1983 the band does their last preformance in makeup… atleast in this era. Later in 1983 Vinnie does his recording debut on Lick It Up, which was the only KISS album he was involved in. Vinnie was fired from the band during the European tour, but came back to play the American part of the tour. When the tour closed in March 1984 Vinnie leaved the band for good, and Mark St. John took his place.
1984 they released the album Animalize with Mark on guitar, but later that year he was forced to leave KISS due to a disease called Reiter’s Syndrome. His place was taken by Bruce Kulick, and in 1985 they release Asylum. In 1986 the members did